I have only played a few games with Zed, but targetting his W seems excessively difficult. The indicator arrow gives you a very vague idea of where the shadow will actually stop moving, and it gives no indication of max range. From my games, it does not appear that the very end of the indicator arrow is where the shadow stops, and the degree to which I can lengthen that arrow seems disconnected to how far my cursor is from Zed. (I have to move the cursor very, very far from zed to lengthen the indicator arrow, so my cursor is not indicating the final location of the shadow).

Since the actual dash is just an animation, why can't we get the standard blue circle indicator, indicating the max range that the shadow can dash, and a simple targeting recticle indicating where I as the player would like to place the shadow? It removes the guessing and the confusion about ranges and final locations that, in my experience, makes this ability less fun then it could otherwise be.

The Living Shadow spell works similar to other dashes in our game - Gragas and Graves are good examples. They have both a min range and a max range. What this means is that if you have your cursor within ~400 range of Zed the cursor will be ~400 units long. As you move the cursor between ~400 units and the max range, the cursor will extend to show the correct range.

The reasoning for this is that I didn't want people dropping a shadow on top of themselves and instantly double Shuriken from the same location. The min range also gives enemies a chance to realize you're about to try to double-Q them and start dodging.

As far as the shadow not appearing at your cursor, as long as your cursor is in between the min and max range the shadow should appear right on top of it when you cast the spell.

Is there any chance of the max range and tether range being increased slightly? I realize he has 2 gap closers but the ability itself doesn't feel very good to use when used as a gap/closer escape. Part of this reason is because of the delay between casting the ability and it being created is very noticeable when running towards the location you want to dash to.

He's mostly fine outside of that I think

Why use his w primarily as a gap closer? Essentially, you could w ahead, cast e, cast q, and then switch. This would slow your opponent, produce some damage, and allow you time to catch up. If you are really having a hard time catching up to your enemies, grab a youmuu's. I don't think the range needs to be any further than it already is.

I appreciate the thought put into this. I agree, it does work better that you can't just drop your shadow on yourself for an easy bonus damage, however - the more I play Zed the more I agree with the OP.

The targeting shouldn't be like Shen or Graves because he doesn't just dash forward in a straight line, it makes it hard to go over walls for epic clutch chase or escapes at angles when it'd be easier with the standard circle targeting.

Samizul
i got a little question ~
Why did you guys put a restriction on at which distance Zed can blink back to his shadow?
Or to another extent, why is it so small?

I know Leblanc is a totally diferent champ, but you can be a KM away from your mark with her, and still blink back

What's the reasoning behind Zed's limitation? and why is it such a hard limitation?
(at least while practicing jukes around, alone, i felt like the distance was quite small from what i actually liked it to be, when doing a deceptive "nope, im over THERE!" juke)

You can't really compare Zed's dash with Gragas or Graves. Zeds is so so much more useless then theirs. Gragas's is on a MUCH shorter cd and deals dmg and slows movement in an AOE, and graves gives him bonus AS and passively resets the cd for every shot fired. All in all their dashes actually make sense as part of their kit. Zed's dash does not.

Obviously Riot doesn't agree with you, else they'd have given him a different people. And give his dash a chance, many people thought Elise's spider E was rubbish when she first came out because all it does is give you 2 seconds of untargetable then drop you at an enemy with a massive CD, but anyone who is still playing Elise seriously will tell you now that her spider E is a major asset. Human E is still sh!t though but you can't have everything.


As to the dash CD, it is high for an important reason which is that his burst damage potential is significantly reduced when it is on cooldown; an important feature of an assassin. If the CD on his dash was shorter then his damage output would be too consistant for anybody to cope with. Assassin damage is meant to be powerful but sporadic; they all have a skill with a significantly longer cooldown and it often involves mobility, like LeBlanc's W or Katarina's E.

As for the high damage on his other abilities, people have to keep in mind that he doesn't get to spam his ult like many other assassins. Akali's ult works off charges, Katarina's passive typically lowers the CD of hers (and refreshes with 3 kills), Diana can use hers twice and then again within 25 seconds, and LB can use hers nearly three times a minute at max rank, more with CDR. Zed on the other hand has an 80 second wait without CDR, leaving his damage output otherwise deficient for over a minute when his ult is on cooldown.

On the other hand base damage on abilities at low rank can be an issue on champions who don't use mana, where their potential for harrassing is unlimited. I personally feel that his skills hit too hard at low levels, especially considering the missile speed on that Q makes it supremely difficult to dodge. It doesn't take long for a Zed to harrass someone down with his Q at no significant cost to himself; no mana, minimal effort, and low risk because of its decent range. It does 75 base damage at Rank 1 to the first target, with slightly lower output on subsequent targets, which can be kept up indefinately while most other champions are in the area of 80 for single target damage that quickly drains mana.

So there may or may not still be problems with Zed's balance, but his dash CD and end game Q damage are not significant parts of that.